The Cash Clown

We’re 5 days away  from  the Spin  stopping here, no more  guys are just getting ready for the season, guys are bored with  ST, the velocity will  come with  adrenaline, and my favorite, so and so has always been a slow starter

In many lines of work if your a slow starter, your out of a job in a week. When you make millions of dollars to play  a sport there should be  no  such  thing as the aforementioned excuses 2 weeks before the regular season  starts, you’ve had a month  to  shake off the rust

You take 2 weeks to  a month off after October and get your ass back to  work, like the rest of us..

Hal Steinbrenner wants desperately to  cut payroll, unfortunately he wants to  cut it cold turkey so he didn’t want to embellish his rotation despite his Ace pitching with  a  a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament, his #2 only pitching 76.1 innings in the last 3 seasons, his #3 being about as effective as a baby aspirin tackling a massive hangover, his # 4 giving up  the most hits in the NL last season, and his #5 who  couldn’t crack  most teams #8 before getting hurt on the first play of his very first spring training game

With Beano Capuano sidelined, Adam Warren has been taken out of a job he was good at  and handed  a job he is barely competent doing, for all intents and purposes he got the gig because he was the best of the worst possible choices

Hal bestowed kudos on his GM for doing a good job this off season! Yes he did a decent job, cutting payroll, which  was priority number 1 for the  self described Financial Geek who is stuck with a plethora of bad contracts and older broken down players on the back  end of their careers

In a effort to adhere to his boss’ wishes Cashman  needed to  trade his best  back up  catcher for a LH reliever who had a stellar 2013 season, but had trended the wrong way in 2014. They found enough peripherals in Justin Wilson’s metrics that proved to them maybe he was pitching into bad luck, but the Pirates, a playoff team with  a limited budget felt he was expendable despite his affordable contract of $556 K and 3 years of team  control

In an  effort to help  the rotation, Cashman then traded two years of a professional player, Martin Prado, for a live arm that had not lived up to his potential, so  the Marlins gave up on Nate Eovaldi.. This was more about getting a starter for $3.3M then  anything else. Eovaldi  had a .300 winning percentage, gave up  24 more hits ( the most in the NL, 223) then innings pitched, and had a below league K / 9 average of 6.4

I will  admit Cashman  brought in a legitimate backup ( Jones)  to  the fragile Teixeira in the Prado / Phelps trade, in essence the Yanks are getting two players for the price of Prado, yes that’s  no  doubt a financial geek’s wet dream…

The biggest negative  buzz after yet  another lack luster offensive ST game, a 3-0 loss to  the Rays relief corp where the Yanks picked up  4 hits, none of them for extra bases, wasn’t focused on this game but the Tanaka effort the day before against  a predominately Double and Triple A Twins squad

Hall of Famer Pedro Who’s Your Daddy Chump Martinez

made some headliners with his take that Tanaka looks like damaged goods.. Hate to  say it, but El Pollo is right, enough with the  we just  wanted to get through ST crap, Tanaka isn’t even  close to the pitcher we saw in the beginning of his 2014 season

His  fast ball velocity is down from 94 to 89, he touched 91 / 92 maybe twice vs the Twins and in that  sequence you saw what his M.O. should be, get  ahead in the count with  fast balls,then  bury the batter  with  the fork  ball,  except he needs to dial it to 94, 91 ain’t gonna cut it

Your 1 start  from the season’s opening day outing, if your not airing it out in that game then something is wrong.. I can only buy  the weather will be cooler and the adrenaline will be flowing so much, Tanaka hasn’t aired it out once all  Spring

Private Ryan is once again on the DL,

Prado is gone, Noonan isn’t a big league player, and Pirela has canaries singing him bedtime lullabies, so  who knows how long that  will take to  clear up, so Cashman may have to make a default move, against his better judgement, which isn’t an awe-inspiring experience, as a GM Cashman has been a good director of spending

Hal’s GM  will be forced to bring up Rob Refsynder, unless he does the unthinkable and finds a dumpster dive utility player that  has been cut by another team to  cover for Ryan

Refsynder showed he might be a decent offensive player, but do  the Yanks want to  sit him on the bench waiting to  sub for  Drew who  will have to  sub for Gregorius? And who  plays back up  3rd base, Arod?

We should know if Gregorius’ wrist  is damaged goods here in the next  few days, and while it looks like Refsynder could make the squad, where are you playing him? Is it smart to have a one position player as your utility guy?

Do  the Yanks want to  start Refsynder at  2nd base and keep Drew as the utility man? He better start to take reps at  3rd base then, or we can hope A-Rod can fill in 1 day  a week  for Headley

It won’t hurt to have Refsynder another RHB in the everyday line up, and I wouldn’t worry about starting his clock,  we’re not talking Kris Bryant or Mike Trout here, but wouldn’t it be something if Refsynder made us forget about Cano,  at least on offense?

The fact Cashman  doesn’t think he’s ready is actually reassuring, after all the face to Cashman’s team is Brett Gardner, you really have to be kidding me

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